


A Game of Cat & Spider

by beetle



Series: The Cat and the Spider [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Felix thinks Peter's ridiculously cute, First Dates, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light Angst, M/M, Made For Each Other, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Past Felix Hardy/Ryan, Past Rape/Non-con, Peter thinks Felix is gorgeous, Pre-Black Cat's Bad Luck Powers, Pre-Slash, Redemption, Redemption Arc Begins?, Spidercat, They low-key have the hots for each other, Vendettas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8955466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Felix Hardy’s in a real bind, thanks to a certain Avenging Arachnid. And said arachnid isn’t interested in letting Felix go. Perhaps it’s because he caught Felix attempting to tamper with someone’s brakes. That Spider-Man’s such a buttinsky. Here’s the song that drove this piece. Prompt in the end notes.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pyroperception](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyroperception/gifts), [Vixen13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixen13/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Slightly dark, but humorous AU, in which _Felicia Hardy_ has always been _Felix Hardy_. Other than that, no significant changes in Felix Hardy’s backstory, as regards this first fic. And yes, there _will_ be others. Eventually. TRIGGER: Mentions of PAST-NONCON.
> 
> For Vixen13's prompt and Pyroperception's dare. I didn't one up ya, but at least finally tackled another one of those prompts, right?

* * *

 

 

“Get this fucking shit _off_ me, you prick!”

 

Spider-Man’s masked head tilted slightly and Felix could only imagine the masked nuisance was smirking. Not that he’d ever _seen_ said masked nuisance _without_ the mask, let alone seen him smirk, but he had a good imagination.

 

It was that imagination that got him in this bind in the first place, he supposed.

 

“Wow, with manners like _that_ , I’ll get right on it, kitten,” Spider-Man drawled, arms crossed over his chest. Felix’s wide, slanted, envy-green eyes narrowed within the bounds of his half-mask and his lips curled in a grim sneer.

 

“I’m _not_ your _kitten_ , fuckface. Now get your spider-gunk off me, or you’ll live to regret it. On my word, you’ll live and live to regret it.”

 

“Big talk from a kitty all caught up in my home-made yarn.” Spider-Man snorted and leaned back against Ryan McGinty’s broken-in Audi, crossing his right leg over his left. His arms were still crossed over his chest, as if the infamous Black Cat wasn’t even a _threat_. Which made the rage that’d been bubbling and brewing in Felix for almost a year at a slow simmer, quickly churn and burn its way toward a boil. “Honestly? I thought grand larceny and burglary were the extent of your . . . villainous perfidy.”

 

“ _Don’t_ fucking _laugh_ at me!” Felix growled, really beginning to _struggle_ against the webbing binding him from shoulders to knees. He rolled fruitlessly between Ryan’s car and some unremarkable, late model Dodge in a hideous shade of purple, still growling as he exerted all his considerable strength—though clearly not as considerable as Spider-Man’s . . . or at least Spider-Man’s webbing—to free himself.

 

“Just lemme know when you’re ready to calm down, and we’ll chat like normal people, m’kay?” Spider-Man said almost lazily, a smile in his voice that only made Felix see red that had nothing to do with the arachnoid asshole’s stupid suit.

 

“I _don’t_ want to chat. I have _nothing_ to say to you.”

 

“Then shall I call the cops?”

 

“Do whatever you want!”

 

“And tell them I caught you stepping up your game from stealing shit, to attempting to commit cold-blooded murder?”

 

Felix stopped struggling and glared up at the so-called _superhero_. “Tell the pigs whatever you want, Spider-Boy. I don’t actually _give a fuck_. And I’ll be out on bail in two hours, just like all the other times.”

 

Spider-Man chuckled incredulously. “Listen, beautiful, I just caught you trying to cut some guy’s _brake-line_ , for fuck’s sake! _And_ you haven’t yet denied that’s what you were doing! I somehow doubt you’ll be let out on bail this time, especially with _your_ criminal record taken into account!”

 

Felix sneered again. “I’ve never committed a violent crime.”

 

“Let’s not start lying to each other, Mr. Hardy,” Spider-Man said, snorting, then going suddenly terse and business-like, his fists clenching slightly. “You’ve got a rap-sheet longer than my dick, and it includes felonious assault and robbery.”

 

“Not against anyone who mattered. Not against anyone who was _innocent_.” Felix shrugged jerkily, his black leather body-suit creaking just below his range of hearing and registering only as a tickle at the very bottom of his ear-drum.

 

“Oh, and now _you_ , a burglar, larcenist, robber, and perpetrator of assault, get to decide who matters and who’s innocent?”

 

Felix winced, but was unwilling to concede the Spider’s point. “I know assholes when I see ‘em,” he said flatly, giving Spider-Man a slow, pointed once-over.

 

“Ouch! What a shame I don’t have any Bacitraycin on me for that _epic burn_!”

 

“I said _don’t laugh at me!_ ” Felix growled again, low and mean, and giving a herculean stretch that made his suit creak and a few strands of webbing snap. Spider-Man’s chuckles cut off and in nanoseconds he was firing more webs at Felix as reinforcement. “Stop it! Lemme go! You can’t _do_ this to me! Vigilantism’s as illegal as burglary and murder and—and _rape_ —and I _swear_ , if you don’t get this shit offa me _now_ , I’m gonna _kill you!_ ”

 

“Jesus-Mary-Joseph, Hardy, _calm down_!” Spider-Man said, the amusement finally gone from his annoying, slightly nasally tenor. He knelt next to Felix slowly, as if trying to calm a wild animal, seeming unsurprised when Felix hissed at him. He held out one gloved hand that he then drew back when Felix flinched away, shuddering, teeth gritted and eyes wide with sudden fear. “Calm down, please,” Spider-Man murmured, hands now held up as if in surrender. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

 

“Just to th-throw me in jail? Maybe _prison_?” Felix stammered through teeth that were practically chattering with cold—cold out of _nowhere_ since this October night was unseasonably warm—an Indian Summer that most people Felix’s age were enjoying in skimpy clothes and with friends. Not creeping around in an experimental, black-leather cat-suit, as alone as they’d ever been. “Yeah. _That_ wouldn’t hurt me, at all.”

 

Spider-Man stared at Felix silently for a minute before sighing and lowering his hands. “Damnit, I’m trying to _help_ , Hardy.”

 

“Whom, exactly? Certainly not _me_.” This time, Felix was the one to laugh, high and hysterical—barely under any sort of self-control. Spider-Man’s head tilted again.

 

“Maybe if you told me why you felt the need to tamper with some random guy’s brakes in the middle of the night—”

 

“He’s _not_ random! He’s—” Felix’s mouth shut with an audible click. “I don't have to tell you shit. But Ryan McGinty's not _random_. He’s a _bad-guy_. The _worst_ kind of criminal. And he escaped _your_ justice and the _city’s_.”

 

“Kinda like _you_ have for the past six months?”

 

Felix scowled, then tried to sit up. The webbing didn’t give and he wound up flopping back down to the dusty macadam. So, he settled for glaring at the spandex-clad superhero. “I just steal shit. I don’t hurt people who don’t hurt me. I don’t _lie_ to them and make them think they’re _safe_ with me, and then steal something they can _never_ get back! Sure, I take other people’s stuff— _rich_ people—but _I’m_ not like Ryan!”

 

“But you _are_ on a first name-basis with him?” Spider-Man probed incisively. Felix paled, then went fuschia with rage and frustration. He started struggling with the webbing again.

 

“Let me go!”

 

“Okay, _really_ not gonna. So, you can stop struggling and asking.”

 

“Who says I’m _asking_ , asshole?”

 

Another snort. “You’re in no position to be making _any_ kinds of threats, gorgeous.”

 

“Rough me up, if you’re _gonna_. Call the cops _if_ you’re gonna. But _don’t_. Don’t sexually harass me when I’m at your mercy, under the guise of banter and being a lovable wise-ass,” Felix said with cold calm, and could almost see Spider-Man blink behind the mask as he shrank back against Ryan’s car.

 

“I—jeez. _Fuck_. You’re right.” Sighing, Spider-Man shook his head, a rueful laugh sounding in the still, balmy night. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said—I mean, because of what _you_ just said. About it being harassment and unfair. Not because you’re _not_ _gorg_ —hey, what’re _you_ laughing at?”

 

Felix snickered loudly at Spider-Man’s defensive offense. “I’m laughing at _you_. The Amazing Spider-Man, Savior of New York City’s helpless, has a wee crush on evil ol’ me.”

 

“I _don’t_ have a _crush_ , Hardy,” Spider-Man said adamantly. Then shrugged. “I just have _eyes_.”

 

 _Men,_ Felix thought disdainfully. “I wonder what your precious city and its inhabitants would say if they knew you were _queer_ , Spidey. . . .” he mused meanly.

 

Spider-Man chuckled again, dismissive and almost weary. “After all the things they’ve _already_ said about me, calling me out for being queer would be _so_ below my insult-threshold.”

 

Felix blinked, surprised, then his brow furrowed. His face was getting sweaty behind the half-mask . . . more from frustration than anything else. “ _Would it_ , now?”

 

“Well. I don’t go around singing _It’s Raining Men_ while rescuing people, but I’ve never kept the fact that I’m bisexual a secret from anyone. I have nothing to be ashamed of. So why should people knowing that I like dick, too, make me nervous?”

 

Sighing, Felix rolled his eyes. “You take all the fun out of possible blackmail, Spidey.”

 

“Well. That’s kinda in the job description.” Spider-Man leaned a little closer. “Look. I know we’re not exactly playing on the same team, here—I’m the Federation, you’re the Romulan Star Empire. I’m Gryffindor, you’re Slytherin. I’m a Jedi, you’re a Sith. I’m the Mets, and you’re the Sox—”

 

“Wait—why do _I_ have to be the Red Sox?” Felix demanded. Spider-Man continued as if he hadn’t interrupted.

 

“And I’m Team Jacob and you’re Team Edward. That’s how it is. I get it.”

 

“Eww.” Felix shuddered. “You _would_ know the ins and outs of fucking _Twilight_ , you lame douche. And I’m _Ravenclaw_ , not Slytherin.”

 

Spider-Man’s incredulous look was tangible, like cool moonlight on Felix’s face. “Huh. Maybe—but you’ve gotten Sorted Slytherin _at least once_ in your life. Admit it.”

 

“I’m not admitting _anything_. Wouldn’t even say _shit_ if I had a mouthful. Not to _you_ , anyway,” Felix huffed, but he was blushing, too. “You want confirmation on my House, you find _proof_. I’m not handing you the key to my Hogwarts-experience.”

 

“Then will you at least tell me _why_ I _shouldn’t_ drag you off to jail right now, and tell the cops what I _saw_ you trying to do to this _Ryan’s_ car?”

 

Narrowing his eyes in a cool squint, Felix tilted his head up proudly. “I have _no_ reason to believe that knowing _my_ reasons would make you _less_ likely to haul my ass off to the hoosegow, Spider-Menace. So, if I’m gonna wind up in jail and eventually prison, anyway, I don’t see the point of spilling my guts to _you_.”

 

Spider-Man sighed again. “Is Ryan a client of yours? Did he commission you to steal something for him?”

 

Felix was so tickled by that question, he actually answered it. “Have you seen the POS car he drives?” He kicked at the Audi’s rear passenger-side tire weakly, nearly missing it. “He couldn’t _afford_ me! And even if he _could_ , I wouldn’t steal for or from him for all the money in the world!”

 

“So, whatever it is, it’s _personal_ ,” Spider-Man murmured to himself, then before Felix could deny it, went on. “Did he screw you over on a job? Or maybe _steal_ from you?”

 

Narrowing his eyes once again, Felix remained silent.

 

“Alright, not that. Hmm . . . was . . . if it’s personal, then . . . was he a _friend_? Or maybe a _lover_?”

 

“ _Never_ ,” Felix hissed like a scalded cat, teeth bared, face scrunched into a look of disgust so deep it _hurt_.

 

“Then maybe you _wanted_ him to be?” Spider-Man said nonchalantly, and Felix growled and tried to lunge at the arachnid avenger, for a moment forgetting his bound state. Then he started his struggling again, swearing and rocking as he flexed and stretched against the webbing.

 

“Or maybe,” Spider-Man went on softly, with dawning realization and understanding that sent chills down Felix’s spine. “Maybe you _didn’t_ want him to be, and . . . maybe this _Ryan_ didn’t have his listening-ears on.”

 

Felix froze, blinking wide, suddenly wet green eyes up at Spider-Man, who sat back against Ryan’s rear passenger-side door with another sigh, this one heavy and disheartened. “Fuck. Hardy— _Felix_ —I dunno what to sa—”

 

“I don’t need your fuckin’ _pity_ , Web-Head,” Felix spat coldly, trying once more to sit up. All he succeeded in doing was getting a face full of his own platinum hair. And a mouthful, too, as the foremost locks of his asymmetrical haircut were long enough to brush his chin. He tossed his head but the hair only flopped forward again. Spider-Man automatically leaned closer, reaching out to brush the hair back, but Felix flinched away. He couldn’t help it. “ _Don’t_.”

 

“Sorry,” Spider-man mumbled quietly, sounding chastened and miserable. He let his hands hang between his knees as he watched Felix’s struggles taper off. “Look, I don’t . . . I don’t _pity_ you, Hardy. _Really_ , I don’t. But I also can’t let you kill a man, rapist or not.”

 

“You think you can _stop_ me?” Felix demanded, laughing again. This time, it was as wild and uncontrolled as a flooding river. He couldn’t even shift his arms enough to make using his retractable claws feasible, but it didn’t matter. _Nothing_ did, but getting Ryan McGinty and shuffling him loose of the mortal coil at last. And even a night or two spent at Riker’s Island couldn’t keep Felix down for longer than it took him to break out and track down that piece of shit, _scumbag_ motherfucker.

 

And _fuck_ cutting his breaks and making it look like an accident; if Felix was going down for murder, he’d make that freak _suffer_. And suffer. _And suffer_. Then cut his dick off and shove it down his throat till he suffocated. “You can only _delay_ me, Wall-Crawler. But you _can’t_ stop me.”

 

“I can try to,” Spider-Man said in that too-quiet, too compassionate voice. It grated even more on Felix than Spidey's low-class, nasally, _New Yawk_ whine usually did. “I know that I’ll _always_ do my best to help the innocent and defenseless.”

 

“I’m _neither_.”

 

“Maybe not _now_. Maybe because you’re trying so hard _not_ to be . . . trying so hard to hit bottom.” Spider-Man shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. “But once upon a time, you _were_. And someone that you maybe cared about hurt you _very_ badly. And _because_ of that, you’re striking out in every direction, doing things that you might not have ever done, had you never been . . . raped.”

 

“Shut up.” Felix was rocking and rolling and struggling against the webs again. There was almost a little bit of give and his arms shifted a fraction. But still not enough to make distending his claws do anything other than puncture his own thighs. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, just because you got an A in Psych 101.”

 

“It was an A+, actually, and maybe I _don’t_. But again, you haven’t denied or corrected anything I’ve said, that didn’t have to do with baseball or Harry Potter.”

 

Felix let out another wild laugh and sagged back against the dusty macadam, shutting his eyes against the brightness of the half-moon. “God, just . . . call the fucking pigs, willya? I’m so _sick_ of the sound of your voice, I’ll _gladly_ take some jail-time, if it means _not_ hearing you run your fucking _mouth_.”

 

“Felix. . . .”

 

Huffing and opening his eyes, blinking away tears unsuccessfully, Felix shook his head. “I’m done letting you psychoanalyze me, Spidey. Either turn me in, or let me go.”

 

“You have to be better than your rage is telling you to be,” Spider-Man said urgently. “I know how it feels to crave vengeance so much you can taste it on your tongue with each breath. To the point that you think you’ll go mad if you can’t avenge the loss of something that meant . . . _everything_ to you. Believe me: I _know_ that need. I know that _loss_.”

 

Felix levered his head up off the macadam and gave Spider-Man a wide-eyed, fake-innocent look. “ _Your_ first boyfriend got you intentionally too drunk to fight back effectively, then pinned you down so that you could barely breathe, and forced his way inside of you hard and repeatedly, too? And continued _long_ after you’d given up screaming no and cursing, to the point that you were sobbing and just _begging_ him to please stop hurting you? And then, after he was done _violating_ you and _laughing_ at you, _you_ could barely do the Walk of Shame out of his frat-house, and make the agonizing walk to the campus Health Office, too? Where the _bitch_ of an on-duty nurse refused to believe that you _hadn’t_ asked for it and wanted it, and pretty much _deserved_ it for being a filthy fag and corrupting _poor, innocent_ basketball stars? Can _you_ not get clean no matter how many months have passed and how many showers you’ve had? Are _you_ waking up screaming and weeping every single night for almost a year, now? Have _you_ been unable to stomach a man touching you, even when it’s just a handshake or a pat on the back? _Have you_ , Spidey? Because, oh, my _God_ , if you _have_ , you and I have been experience-twins _all this time_ and I just didn’t _realize_ it, buddy!” Felix batted his eyes at the clearly uncomfortable superhero and laughed raucously at the other’s discomfort. “ _Fuck_ you and your understanding. You don’t know a goddamn _thing_ about me and you never will.”

 

“I know that killing someone in revenge for something they took from you _doesn’t_ make you feel better. Only _worse_. I know that you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing they were still alive, so that you didn’t have to wear their death like a hair-shirt to punish yourself with. I know that you will _never_ get back what he took from you. _Never_. You’ll rebuild yourself in your own image and create a life very like the one you once had. But you’ll never be the _same_. Never be the naïve, innocent, optimistic boy who trusted the wrong person.” Spider-Man leaned in a little, so slow that for once, Felix didn’t wince from another man’s nearness. “You will _never_ be able to beg, buy, barter, or _steal_ back the man that _Ryan_ stole from you, Felix,” he said in a raw, pained voice as full of heart-break as it was rue. And Felix shuddered as more tears blurred his already compromised vision and in his chest, his heart—which always ached and had since he was nine—doused in agony. In the _truth,_ which he’d been avoiding since the night Ryan had raped him. “Not by killing him. You’ll only lose _more_ of yourself, going down that path. You’re losing and _losing_ , living your life this way . . . and he’s _winning_. He’s taking all the bits of you that really matter, just like he took your virginity, your innocence, and your _hope_. No—it’ll be even _worse_ , because he _won’t_ be taking it. You’ll be gift-wrapping it and _giving_ it to him.”

 

Felix didn’t even realize he was full-on _weeping_ until he blinked and more tears rolled down his wet half-mask to soak his cheeks.

 

“Then _what_ would you _have_ me do, Jimminy Cricket?” Felix demanded in a low, uneven husk—even when he wasn’t swallowing back tears, his voice, though deep, had a tendency to crack, sometimes. Now, it was barely holding together at all—shaking his stupid hair out of his face again. This time, it _stayed out_. “I didn’t have the luxury of _superpowers_ to save me. No dumbass with a spider-aesthetic to come swinging in and punch my rapist in the dick _before_ he could rape me.” Felix shook his head and looked up at the moon, sniffling. He remembered how, when he was nine, just after his father’d “disappeared,” he’d used to wish he lived there. Lived on the moon. All alone and where no one—not absentee fathers or resentful mothers—could ever make him cry again. “No evidence that what he did to me was non-consensual. No frat-brothers to be my character witnesses and back _my_ story up. No jury that was willing to convict a promising athlete and student in the very beginning of his university career, for a drunken mistake with some queer slut who probably _wanted_ it rough but didn’t count on getting _exactly_ what he was asking for. _Those_ are luxuries that even _I_ couldn’t afford, no matter how much I stole and took and hoarded. So, I’m going with what I _can_ afford. Revenge. It may not be _sweet_ , but ya know what? I’ve gotten used to the awful taste that’s _already_ in my mouth. I don’t imagine one extra note of bitterness will phase me much.”

 

“You _don’t_ imagine because you _can’t_. And _that’s_ why I’m trying to warn you. To help you. To . . . to _save_ you, Felix.” Spider-Man’s voice cracked, too, all foggy and young. He sounded like he might be crying, himself.

 

Felix told himself he didn’t care and that it didn’t matter, anyway, and continued gazing up at his would-be home.

 

“ _Save_ me?” He snorted. “You’re ten months, three weeks, four days, two hours, and some-odd minutes too late for _that_ , Spider-Man. You think that revenge’ll destroy what’s left of me? Newsflash, hero: There _is_ nothing left of me. I’m hollowed out and _empty_ but for despair I can’t _stomach_ and rage I _can’t_ control.”

 

“Then let _me_ help you control it,” Spider-Man suddenly plead, leaning close again. Once more, Felix didn’t flinch or wince away. Instead, he shook his head yet again, smirking tiredly.

 

“Oh? And just how would you do _that_?”

 

Spider-Man took a breath that shook. “Well. There’s only one way for you to find out. But I _am_ willing to do all I can to help you figure out how to live a whole and purposeful life—maybe even a _happy_ one— _without_ having to _take_ a life and spend the rest of _yours_ in prison. Or go to the chair.”

 

“I think you’re bullshitting me,” Felix said plainly.

 

“I can’t prove that I’m not.”

 

“Then why should I _trust_ you that you’re _not_ just gonna run some kinda game or con to keep that asshole alive and strutting around like he’s King Shit of Turd Mountain?” Felix sneered, though tears were once more running down his still-damp, over-warm cheeks. The half-mask was going to be ruined, at this rate.

 

Spider-Man sighed again, his shoulders sagging just a bit. “Maybe because . . . I’ll take a leap of faith and trust _you first_.” Then he was squaring those coat-hanger shoulders once more and reaching toward Felix, who _did_ try to move away, this time. But all Spider-Man did was run his fingertips down Felix’s web-wrapped arm and thigh.

 

Webs parted, like butter getting the hot knife-treatment, and Felix was bolting to his feet and—with a somersault—vaulting onto the roof of the hideously-painted Dodge behind him. Retractable claws very much _out_.

 

Spider-Man watched this all impassively though, surely, he could have at least moved to stop Felix, if not actually catch him.

 

“So.” Felix crouched in a spring-ready position, staring down Spider-Man, who stood up slowly. “What happens now?”

 

Spider-Man raised his hands as if surrendering again, then reached for the underside of his mask. A long, hesitant moment later, the mask was off and dangling from his fingers and Felix was gaping.

 

For several more of those long moments—nearly a minute—he stared at that square-jawed, boyishly handsome face, with its lively, brown eyes and faint five o’clock shadow. Spider-Man’s nose was a bit long, and his grown-out, sienna-brown hair was messy and pin-straight. His mouth, thin, but not ungenerous . . . made for mirth and coy amusement, was indeed curved in a small smile that was distinctly unamused, but very, very hopeful.

 

All in all, he was ridiculously cute, in an uncommon, but symmetrical way. And his eyes, though keen, were also deeply kind.

 

“Well, next, I was hoping we could grab some coffee and find somewhere quiet to sit and talk,” he said, his smile widening haplessly. “If you can hold off on ganking Ryan McGinty for one more night, that is. Gimme a chance to work some of my mojo on ya.”

 

Felix snorted again. “Maybe I’ll just . . . _gank him_ . . . after coffee. Which _you’re_ paying for, by the way.”

 

“I never thought I wasn’t. But I _am_ hoping I can also buy this fucktard at least _one more_ night of strutting around. He may not _deserve_ it, but you deserve what’s waiting for you if you kill him even _less_.”

 

Felix smirked crookedly and chuckled. “You _vastly_ underestimate the magnitude of bad Karma I already have coming to me, Spider-Geek. I’m not a _nice_ person. Even _before_ Ryan, I . . . I’m _not_ a nice person.”

 

“Doesn’t mean you aren’t a _good_ one.” Spider-Man approached the Dodge until he was within an arm’s length of Felix. And he lifted that arm slowly and held it out toward Felix, hand extended for shaking. “I’d like a chance for us both to find that out. Niceness is appreciated, but not conditional. So, will you come to coffee with me?”

 

Felix stared at Spider-Man’s long, gloved hand for a while before looking up into that unexpectedly cute face again. His stomach churned briefly, then subsided with a gurgle that Spider-Man clearly heard.

 

“And maybe we can get a scone or something as a snack, too,” he added, his smile turning just a _little_ amused. Felix rolled his eyes and dropped casually into a full-lotus on the roof of the car, clawed hands carefully resting on his knees.

 

“I’ll have a gold-plated Rolls Royce for a snack, as long as _you’re_ paying for it, sugar-daddy.”

 

Those prominent, dark brows shot up in exasperation. “Classy, Felix.”

 

Felix shrugged unapologetically. “I’m a _taker_. It’s who I am. Money, art, valuables . . . lives.” Another shrug. “It’s what I do.”

 

Spider-Man frowned, his hand still held out, the other clenched around his mask. “Not anymore.”

 

“That’s some faith you have in your own blarney, boyo.”

 

“It’s not my _blarney_ that I have faith in, Felix.”

 

Shivering, Felix looked away for a few moments. Moments during which Spider-Man pulled on his mask again, before re-extending his hand. “By the way,” he said quietly, gravely. “My name is Peter. Peter Benjamin Parker.”

 

Eyes wide enough that the half-mask was suddenly uncomfortable, Felix found himself staring into those white lenses and missing— _wishing_ they were those dark, kind eyes.

 

“Felix Hardy,” he heard himself saying, darting his own claws-in right hand out to take Peter’s for a quick, limp shake. Then he was drawing his hand back and, after a moment, retracting the claws of his left hand, too. “Gladameetcha, I guess, Peter Parker.”

 

“I can honestly say the same,” was Peter’s simple, honest reply. Then he stepped back, sweeping an arm out before him. “Age before beauty, Grumpy Cat.”

 

“And pearls before swine, you Arachnoid Asshole.” Smirking again, Felix somersaulted off the Dodge and sprinted for the nearest streetlight, which was parallel with a semi-distant a copse of cypresses. And not far from there several out-buildings. Then . . . _building_ -buildings. More of them as one moved further away from the college campus’s main parking lot.

 

“Keep up, Spidey-Peter . . . coffee waits for no hero!” Felix called, cartwheeling into a front flip before he leapt for the streetlight and began climbing. As he did, a line of web shot past him, toward the copse of trees, followed by a blur of red and blue that was whooping like a kid.

 

“And _scones_ wait for no burglar, Felix! So, heed your own advice!” Peter’s laughing voice called back from what was already a sizeable distance away. “C’mon, slow-poke! Gonna have to bring your A-game to keep up with _me_!”

 

Grinning at the ever-distant whoops, Felix paused half-way up the streetlamp. “Consider it brought, Peter,” he murmured, and briefly glanced back over his shoulder, at Ryan’s beat-up Audi. . . .

 

It wasn’t like he couldn’t kill Ryan McGinty the next night. Or the _next_. Or the one after _that_. Free food was free food. And free company . . . well . . . _that_ wasn’t _so bad,_ either. Certainly, easy on the eyes, even with the mask taken into account.

 

 _Next time_ , Felix told himself firmly, but with a certain uneasy sense of foreshadowing. _Next time. And I’ll take his high school ring as a trophy._

 

Thus decided, he shook off his unease. Tomorrow wasn’t, as his mother had been fond of saying, promised, but Felix seriously doubted that anything _fatal_ would happen to Ryan before Felix could seek his revenge. So, for now, anyway, he’d humor the cute spider with the soulful eyes. It was no skin off his nose.

 

Facing forward once more, he frowned at his unusual moment of indecision. Spidey was already a red and blue speck far hence, and that? Simply _would_ _not_ _do_.

 

“Keep up, Hardy!” came a shout from the distance. Grinning _,_ he zeroed in on a stunted cypress thirty yards away and, with a whoop of his own, Felix Hardy _leapt_.

 

 _And_ he kept up.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: Leave a “Unbind Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character freeing another, or the other way around, or something among the lines [be it freeing them from jail, from handcuffs, from a trap, from a curse, feel free to specify.]
> 
> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com/)!


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